January 14, 2010 – Fisker Automotive has entered a battery supply agreement with A123 Systems. The Massachusetts-based company will provide lithium-ion batteries for the Karma plug-in hybrid. Chief Executive Officer Henrik Fisker said, “Fisker Automotive selected A123 because of the company’s ability to meet our performance needs and rapidly scale to our production volume. Fisker is committed to developing environmentally friendly cars that don’t sacrifice style or performance. A123’s technology will ensure the Karma delivers.” In electric-only “Stealth” mode, the Karma — using only A123’s batteries — will have a 50-mile (80km) range, seven-second 0-60 (0-100km/h) time and 95mph (153 km/h) top speed. In hybrid “Sport” mode, the Karma will reach 60 (100km/h) in about 6 seconds, 125mph (201km/h), can achieve 100mpg (2.4L/100km) and has a total range of 300 miles (483km

EnerNOC, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENOC), a leading provider of clean and intelligent energy solutions, today announced that it has acquired Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) firm Cogent Energy, Inc. By integrating Cogent Energy’s extensive commissioning and engineering experience into EnerNOC’s MBCx energy efficiency application, EnerNOC will be able to deliver even more value to its rapidly growing customer base.

“We’re excited to combine forces with EnerNOC, helping to enhance the functionality of EnerNOC’s MBCx energy efficiency application and to introduce EnerNOC’s leading product suite to our existing customer base,” said Tom Riley, Co-founder of Cogent Energy, who along with his team, has joined the energy efficiency business unit at EnerNOC.

Cogent Energy’s solutions enable EnerNOC to service smaller facilities with less sophisticated controls systems, which significantly increases the size of the addressable market for EnerNOC’s MBCx energy efficiency application. EnerNOC plans to build on Cogent Energy’s present and past work with more than 200 customers nationwide, including California State University, University of California, the City and County of San Francisco, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the State of California. Cogent Energy’s experienced engineers will leverage their deep energy expertise to enhance the proprietary analytic filters within EnerNOC’s MBCx application that process energy data captured from building management systems and automatically identify, quantify, and track energy savings opportunities.

“The market for MBCx represents a huge growth opportunity for EnerNOC. We’ve already experienced early successes with our in-house built application and established ourselves as a leader in the rapidly evolving MBCx industry,” said Tim Healy, Chairman and CEO of EnerNOC. “Combining Cogent Energy’s expertise with the automated power of MBCx will enable EnerNOC to deliver one of the most powerful energy efficiency offerings in the world.”

“Assisting our clients in their pursuit of operating efficient facilities while helping to promote a sustainable environment is our number one priority,” said Tom Arnold, Vice President of Energy Efficiency and Carbon Management Solutions at EnerNOC. “Cogent Energy has worked with universities, local governments, commercial properties, utilities, and dozens of other industries to extract significant value from energy efficiency investments.”

Despite recent advances, the U.S lags far behind other major countries when it comes to clean energy investment and experts say it may never lead, let alone compete on equal terms.

And that’s after some $836 million in green technology deals in 2009—the most ever, according to Greentech Media, and another $8 billion in renewable energy loans budgeted under the Obama administration’s stimulus package.

“We stand to fall farther and farther behind other countries like China and India unless there are fundamental shifts,” says Susan MacCormac, chair of the venture capital and cleantech practices at international tech law firm Morrison & Foerster. “The U.S. should catch up, but odds are low that it will.”

A recent report from Deutsche Bank ranks the U.S. and Canada as two of the worst countries for investing in renewable energy, with Germany, France and China listed as among the best. The report cites a lack of long term and transparent energy polices in the U.S. that would translate into any kind of certainty for investments.

“I think there’s been no long-term vision that’s been executed,” says William Brent, SVP of cleantech practice at Weber Shandwick, an international marketing and communications firm. “The Bush administration pretty much left it (green technology) on the table and Obama’s made some improvements, but there’s no political leadership that you’re seeing in other markets.”

With all the talk about the importance of clean tech in addressing economic, employment, security, and climate issues, what are the actions taking place for the U.S.to be a global leader in the rapidly unfolding opportunity? This quote from Patrick Tam, General Partner at Tsing Capital in Beijing, is quite telling in that the U.S. is not necessarily the annointed one unless we move faster than we are:

According to a Time.com report, “Tam…says the government is aggressively helping seed the development of new green-tech industries. An example: 13 of China’s biggest cities will have all-electric bus fleets within five years. ‘China is eventually going to dominate the industry for electric vehicles,’ Tam says, ‘in part because the central government has both the vision and the financial wherewithal to make that happen.’ Tam, a graduate of MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, says he does deals in Beijing rather than Silicon Valley these days ‘because I believe this is where these new industries will really take shape. China’s got the energy, the drive and the market to do it.’ Isn’t that the sort of thing venture capitalists used to say about the U.S.?”

Article form the Puget Sound Business Journal by Byron McCann and John Pierce on 11/09/09.

There’s no doubt that the global meltdown has fundamentally altered the prospects for current and long-term economic growth in our region.

Although the region was already somewhat of an outpost for large multinational corporations, the recession has further shrunk the ranks of corporate giants here in the Pacific Northwest. Those that remain face intense pressure just to maintain market share, much less increase it dramatically. Prospects for the meteoric growth we saw in the ’90s are gone.

Luckily, our region (including Oregon and Idaho) is blessed with a new cadre of entrepreneurs, startups and innovative mature businesses that are poised to jump-start an economic rebound that we believe will allow us to create jobs, increase state revenue and pull us out of the trough we’re in.

This industry we’re talking about is clean technology. It’s composed of people and companies developing and commercializing new, renewable, sustainable and “clean” approaches to fuels, electricity, energy efficiency and materials.

While both of us have spent decades investing in and helping launch startup technology companies, we’ve noticed some key differences between the needs of early-stage software and hardware companies and today’s emerging clean technology companies.

While it is certainly a challenge to launch any new venture, the barriers to starting a software or Web 2.0 company today are far lower than they were 10 or even five years ago. The access to open-source code, the wide availability of API’s (application programming interfaces) and the adoption of platform standards enable software and web entrepreneurs to create and deploy new products and services much more quickly and inexpensively than before.

In addition, promotion and distribution has never been easier. The ubiquity of the web allows customers to directly download applications to PCs, phones and other digital devices. The popularity of social media virtually erases the need for capital for advertising or promotional campaigns. We don’t mean to trivialize it, but it doesn’t take much to launch a web service these days.

Conversely, clean technology startups face more daunting and complex challenges — almost diametrically opposite those of their web peers.

First, the research and development needed to create new forms of energy is exponentially more costly and time consuming. Then, even if you can get an innovation to work in the lab, it’s extraordinarily complex to scale it to the level needed to perform at utility or commercial levels.

In addition, there are significant regulatory, safety and policy issues that must be addressed before certification. Finally, the capital costs of developing new industrial scale energy products are in the billions of dollars.

In short, creating a new form of renewable energy is much different than coding a downloadable app for an iPhone (although I’m sure we wish it could be that simple).

That’s why more than two dozen business leaders in the Pacific Northwest came together to launch the region’s first Clean Tech Open (CTO) competition. The CTO is far more than a typical business plan competition. Rather, it’s a community of nearly 100 volunteers from across the spectrum of venture capital, legal, science, environment, policy — you name it. These business leaders committed time and resources to help clean technology entrepreneurs create or evolve business models to support their clean technology idea, raise money, find strategic partnerships and launch a business.

On Oct. 29, the journey culminated in the first Pacific Northwest Clean Tech Open awards gala in Seattle, where three companies out of an initial pool of 56 were awarded nearly $50,000 in cash and in-kind services each. These three companies will go on to compete in the national competition.

Even those that were not named finalists emerged from the process with a refined business model, practice in presenting to funders, and a leg up on the competition for venture capital.

A vibrant clean technology industry in our region increases venture capital, job creation, income, tax base and GDP at a time when we need high growth in order to rise out of the recession. Traditional industry alone won’t be able to do it big enough or fast enough.

BYRON MCCANN is a founding partner at Ascent Partners Group, a Seattle-based investment bank advising technology entrepreneurs. He can be reached at 206.626.6340. JOHN PIERCE is a member in Seattle of the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati law firm, where he is a leader of the firm’s energy and clean technology practice and can be reached at 206.883.2500. McCann and Pierce are co-chairs of the Pacific Northwest Clean Tech Open.

After six months of busy competition, the twelve clean tech semi-finalists will be highlighted at the Clean Tech Open Awards Gala on October 29th at the ACT Theatre. Governor Gregoire will keynote the event and Byron McCann, NW Region Clean Tech Open Co-chair, and Managing Partner of Ascent, will emcee.

Three finalists will be selected from the NW region who will then go to San Francisco on November 17th for the national Clean Tech Open Awards Gala.

“I am proud of the innovative and dedicated effort these clean tech entrepreneurs have given to the competition and know that they will form the basis of a vibrant clean tech economy for the NW and the US in the coming years,” said Byron McCann of Ascent.

Check out the new website for the NW Energy Angels, a private group of accredited investors who are passionate about building a clean tech economy and helping entrepreneurs achieve success.
www.nwenergyangels.com

Over 750 people attended the Washington Energy Summit on May 4, 2009, to focus on how we can collaborate to drive our sustainable energy future forward. Rogers Weed, Director of the Washington State Department of Commerce (formerly known as CTED), presided over the meeting and introduced Governor Gregoire who provided a heightened sense of priority for WA state to develop this essential industry.

Of great interest were several breakout sessions including smart grid and project financing. What is important is to follow and build upon the ongoing conversation.

Join us for the Clean Tech Open’s inaugural Pacific Northwest Regional Competition kick-off. Learn about the successes of the competition in California and why expanding to the Pacific Northwest is both essential and an exciting opportunity for local entrepreneurs. We will be announcing the prize package and structure of the regional competition as well as highlighting the National Prize—the largest prize package ever in the history of the Clean Tech Open.